


A New Good Neighbor

by hobbitdragon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, Fisting, Goodneighbor as a repository for all the Sole's companions, Hand Jobs, M/M, Size Difference, Strong but without the game's bad writing, compliant with FO4's canon of mutants having no external genitals, supermutant socialism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: The first new resident brought to Goodneighbor by Mister Blue-Eyed Killer was a massive supermutant in pink frills.
Relationships: Strong/John Hancock, background Strong/Male Sole Survivor
Comments: 27
Kudos: 61





	A New Good Neighbor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thorinsmut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/gifts).



> This fic is a belated birthday present for the wonderful ThorinSmut! Happy birthday buddy!! Everybody else, go check out the [Fallout birthday fic they wrote for me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840452), too! :D
> 
> If you want to know what I'm imagining this particular Sole Survivor to look like, picture Anderson Cooper with the Joker's smile and Paul Hollywood's eyes. Yeah. Horrifying.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: this fic contains canon-typical descriptions of violence and cannibalism happening onscreen. It's not the focus of the story, but it's pretty explicit. This fic also features canon-typical drug use, though that's not described as much.

Hancock had been trying to have a conversation with Fahrenheit about something. When he thought about it later, Hancock could no longer recall what they’d even been talking about, which might have been because it was so eclipsed by what followed, or might have been the jet. Point was, the two of them had overheard Finn trying to extort a pair of newcomers for cash, and that just pissed Hancock right off. 

With a sigh, he turned to see who he'd have to go save. Standing there with his hand still on the latch to the gate was a handsome white man in his forties wearing military fatigues and combat armor. At his side was a massive supermutant. Hancock’s first instinct on seeing that was to run for cover, but he knew that there were a rare few mutants with less than the usual violent streak, and if the guys patrolling the wall hadn’t called for backup then they must have thought this one wasn’t a threat. 

After a second to focus Hancock could see why. Not only was the mutant standing peaceably, just staring at Finn as Finn made an asshat of himself, but instead of the heavy metal armor most mutants favored, he wore what looked to be a pair of matching frilly pink aprons tied together at his hips as a loincloth. The bows over each plentiful buttock were tidy and crisp. Now Hancock was seeing it, it occurred to him that pink and green were a nice color combination. It gave the mutant a clean, springtime look which didn't especially match with the bloodstained leather strap of his massive minigun. 

Finn, because he was an idiot and a bully whose only redeeming quality was his crack shot with a rifle, did not seem intimidated by this sight. Hell, Finn was enough of a jackass that maybe the sight of a mutant in pink pissed him off for some shitty reason and that’s why he was pulling this ‘give me all your caps or you get hurt’ spiel. Or maybe he was just suicidal. Either way, Hancock had only taken a few steps to go over and discuss this _faux pas_ with Finn when the guy in the armor whipped out a heavy .44 and blew Finn’s head clean off. 

Or, well. Not the _whole_ head. But a significant enough portion of it to be both disgusting and messy in a way Hancock really disliked when he had this much jet in his system and the details were slow-moving and hyper-graphic. 

Hancock had just started to force his eyes away from that when the supermutant moved forward and squatted beside Finn’s still-twitching corpse. The apron-loincloth shifted over those gargantuan green thighs and concealed very little of the equally-pink lacy garment underneath. The round curve of a featureless pubic mound (only partly concealed beneath lace) was very hard to look away from.

“Generous of you,” the mutant rumbled. Then he grabbed Finn’s wrist, braced against Finn’s body with his other hand, and ripped Finn’s arm clean off. The blood splattered on his knees and calves, only barely missing the pristine aprons. With this much jet in his system, Hancock found that near miss stressful. 

Hancock had seen enough of supermutants to know what was coming next, yet he still watched in horrified fascination as the mutant got several of Finn’s fingers into his mouth and crunched right through them, eyes closing with every appearance of pleasure as the blood ran down his mouth and chin. 

“Whoa ho ho!” Hancock laughed, trying to cover the nausea he felt. “I like you already. Walk into a new place, make a show of dominance. Nice.”

It was _not_ nice. The cracking of the finger-bones in the mutant’s mouth was anything _but_ nice. But, well...this was Goodneighbor. What was it _for_ if not all the misfits that were too weird for everywhere else? And a supermutant in lingerie eating someone who’d _just_ died definitely qualified. 

“Goodneighbor’s of the people, for the people, feel me?” Hancock went on. “ _Everyone’s_ welcome. Except, as you just demonstrated for me, how we have a low tolerance for oppressive bullshit.”

The mouth of the man in military fatigues curved into a slow crocodile smile as he dug a single bullet out of his hip satchel, loaded it into the gun, flicked the safety back into place, and holstered the big piece. His piercing blue eyes looked Hancock up and down. Or, looked him down and further down, considering how much taller the man was. He had to be over six feet, which was a size one normally only saw in Vault-dwellers and mutants. The two were a big pair.

“Yeah, I feel you,” the man purred. He held out his hand. “The name’s Nate, and this cutiepie here is Strong. And you are?”

Hancock stared at the extended hand for a moment, then glanced over to where the mutant had gotten Finn’s thumb into his mouth and was happily munching on it, starting at the tip and grinding down bite by bite toward the palm. Didn’t the fingernails bother him? It was hard not to imagine them being like popcorn kernel shells, always wedging themselves between gums and teeth. But then, if you were eating someone bones and skin and all, maybe fingernails were just more crunch. 

Hancock’s unasked question was answered a moment later when the mutant made a face and then dug the nail out from between his molars, flicking it across the plaza to land in one of the piles of windswept refuse.

Finally, after several seconds too long of a pause, Hancock accepted Nate’s handshake. His grip was firm and dry and warm around Hancock’s much smaller hand.

“John Hancock, mayor of Goodneighbor. You stay cool and you’ll be a part of the neighborhood,” Hancock went on desperately, and then, because the supermutant’s thick bare thighs and immense green bosom were getting to him, especially beside Nate’s grin full of freakishly white, perfect teeth, Hancock added, “So long as you remember who’s in charge.”

Hancock didn’t even have a gun on him, he realized then. Sure, Fahrenheit and KLEO were nearby, as were several members of the Neighborhood Watch, and Hancock was very much within stabbing distance of this man. But still! Suddenly Hancock felt rather naked and vulnerable. He didn’t like that at all. 

Nate’s smile didn’t waver as he tucked his own (not eaten) thumbs into the waistband of his camouflage pants. “Ah, I’ve heard of you! Lovely to meet you. We’re here because Strong is looking for a permanent home. We heard about Goodneighbor and figured this might be the place.”

“Well your buddy here certainly seems committed to keeping the place clean,” Hancock offered, because he understood politics. “Very, ah, civic-minded.”

“Waste not, want not,” Strong remarked. “Goodneighbor a good name. Hope it lives up to hype.”

At this Hancock’s eyes narrowed. Was the mutant _sassing_ him? He was, wasn’t he? In that moment, Hancock was grateful he was on jet rather than med-X. Med-X always made him horny, and he didn’t want to be having salacious thoughts while Finn was becoming dinner. Breakfast? Hancock had just woken up recently and wasn’t sure what time it was. The point, though, was that this was not how Hancock liked to see a man eaten out. 

“Seeing as how we’re now down a gun, and we routinely get attacked by your fellow green folks, we could use some more muscle,” Hancock said diplomatically. “How does a cupcake like you not have a home already? You look...well-cared-for,” Hancock said, waving at the aprons. 

It was Nate who replied. He moved in close to Hancock, too close. Fahrenheit clearly thought so too, as she got up from her place leaning against a wall nearby and came to stand at Hancock’s shoulder. Nate didn’t back off, just smiled at them both. His teeth were really uncanny.

“Truth is, Strong doesn’t exactly fit in with his kinfolk,” Nate said in a chummy tone, those blue eyes unblinking and fixed on Hancock’s face. The smile never quite left his mouth. “He’s the sensitive type. When I met him, they had him locked up in a cage along with a radio performer, who’d been reading Shakespeare aloud to him. Strong likes all sorts of literature.”

“Reading is best way to pass time between fights,” Strong offered. 

That sky-blue drill of a stare withdrew briefly as Nate glanced over at Strong, and then Nate pulled a red hanky out of his back pocket, holding it up. Strong bent down and Nate dabbed at his face, wiping off some of the blood. Hancock wasn’t sure why they bothered, given that Strong still had most of the arm to go, but maybe it was the thought that counted. 

Strong gave Nate a smug look that on a human Hancock would have considered suggestive. “Well, one of best ways,” Strong added.

Was that...had that been an allusion to them fucking? Given the slow dip of Nate's lashes as he looked at Strong's grisly mouth and the curl of Nate’s lips away from his incisors into another voracious grin, maybe it was. 

“You two seem close,” Hancock tried. “So why’re you heading out while he stays here?”

“Raider problems,” Strong offered. Hancock waited for more, but Strong started in on the forearm so Hancock looked back at Nate for explanations. 

“There were a lot of raider gangs in the Commonwealth until recently,” Nate began, and that much was true. There had been a sudden and dramatic drop in raider activity in the last few months, and stories that the Minutemen were back with a new General and making real progress for the first time in decades. “I just heard about a place west of here that’s one of the biggest raider encampments I’ve ever heard of. I’m gonna go clear them out.”

“By yourself? I can’t tell if that’s stupid or badass and I like that,” Hancock said honestly. 

“Nah, I've got some other friends coming with me who'll blend in more easily than my baby here. And besides, what are the Minutemen for if not to make the world a better place?” Nate asked, still smiling. 

It took Hancock’s brain a second to catch up to this. _This_ guy was a Minuteman? Normally Hancock was pretty good at telling when he was getting bullshitted, but right now he had no idea. He would have pegged this guy for a Gunner, given the duds and the threatening vibe, but, well...

Either way, Nate walked Strong down to the Hotel Rexford and rented him a room for a whole month. Hancock heard later that they parted with what the occupants of the Hotel described as a 'passionate kiss.'

All Hancock knew about it was that when Goodneighbor was attacked by supermutants a few days later, Strong was not at all shy about gunning down his brethren from atop the walls. He even took a few bullets doing it, and sat patiently as Goodneighbor’s sawbones fished them out of him. Strong didn’t even accept med-X. 

“Does it not work on you?” Hancock asked from Strong’s side, leaning close to look at the extraction process. It was much less gory than when Strong had gone outside the walls after the combat was over and cut open his fallen kin to get at the 'good bits.' Hancock was still trying not to think too much about it. 

Hancock himself was swimming in med-X and thus no longer in any pain whatsoever. He himself had taken a single bullet to the shoulder. Healing was rather simpler for him and the other ghouls than it was for anyone else; he’d acquired a set of gamma guns for Goodneighbor a while ago, and he had one aimed at himself now. It would have him fully healed in a few days. 

His hand shook as he squeezed the trigger on the gamma gun, the dish of the barrel humming against his shoulder he unloaded another set of rounds into himself. With healing happening this fast and the pain numbed out, the hole itched fiercely. It was taking all of Hancock’s drifting concentration not to scratch. 

Strong grunted a negative to Hancock’s question, watching with interest as the doc disinfected Strong’s third bullet hole and then fished inside it with her forceps. The bullets looked so small compared to Strong, and were surprisingly shallow. What would have gone straight through Hancock--and had--was buried only an inch or two deep in Strong’s tough flesh. No wonder the other supermutants were so hard to kill. 

“Human drugs in-e-fec-tive,” Strong enunciated carefully. “I tried.”

“Did you?” Hancock asked, leaning against one massive green shoulder. “We should get you some stronger formulations. I know a guy who can cook up ultra-concentrated stuff that’d probably work even on you, big guy.”

Strong was hot to the touch. Ghouls ran cold, much lower than human temperatures, while mutants ran hotter. The combination of the med-X, the gamma gun, the adrenaline drop, and the heat of Strong’s body all mixed together to have Hancock feeling blissful but tremulous at the same time. In a distant sort of way he wanted to cry. He also wanted to shove a hand down his breeches and touch himself. He wanted to scratch the wound. And he wanted to spread himself out on Strong’s warm chest and fall asleep. 

When the doc had finished with Strong, she moved away to her other patients. Hancock tried to stand, wobbled, and caught himself on the bench. Normally Fahrenheit would have been there to help him, but she’d gotten banged on the head during the combat and was lying in the quiet and dark in another room, also hopped up on med-X. 

To Hancock’s surprise, Strong helped him back to his feet. One of Strong’s hands spanned the entirety of Hancock’s forearm. That realization sent a little thrill through Hancock.

“If you wanna have some fun--er, some careful fun, so neither of us ends up bleeding again--” Hancock started to say, and then remembered that Strong was already in some sort of relationship with that absolutely creepy Minuteman. Hancock wasn’t easily intimidated, but that guy’s eyes had skeeved him right out. 

Strong gave Hancock a considering look, and then shook his head. A stab of disappointment and hurt went through Hancock, alongside the thought _Not even a mutant will fuck you now._ Hancock knew that wasn’t true, _plenty_ of people wanted to fuck the Mayor of Goodneighbor (tiny powerhouse and supplier of good chems that he was) but Hancock always had to wonder how much of the interest was actually about the role or the chems instead of him. Sleeping with other ghouls made it easiest for him to believe it was actually about him. 

“When healed,” Strong said, surprising Hancock and derailing his maudlin train of thought. 

“That gonna be okay with your boyfriend?” Hancock asked. 

“Off fucking raiders probably,” Strong said simply. “Or killing. Or both. Sad I can-not be there with him. Fucking you instead a good al-ter-na-tive.”

“Oooookay,” Hancock said uncertainly.

Strong walked him to the Statehouse. Up _into_ the Statehouse as well, right into Hancock’s room, and then Hancock got his wish of spreading himself out on that huge warm green chest and falling asleep there. They had to drag the mattress off the bedframe and onto the floor so Strong wouldn’t break the bed, but with Strong present that was the work of a moment. 

**

Asking Strong for a fuck seemed to have been the magic word to get the mutant to orient himself toward Hancock. Perhaps Strong had been lonely, or perhaps he was just bored. Hancock didn’t know him well enough yet to tell. But to Fahrenheit’s chagrin and distrust, Strong spent the next day exclusively in Hancock’s presence while they both waited to heal. 

The next morning Hancock asked Fred for a higher concentration of med-X and got it, but when Hancock tried to give it to Strong, he discovered that normal needles wouldn’t pierce Strong’s skin. 

Turned out Mentats worked on him though, if he took a bunch at once. Strong on Mentats was surprisingly good company, observant and chill. 

Opinionated, too. 

“Running this place wrong,” Strong told him. Hancock was spread out in Strong’s enormous lap, using the gamma gun on himself again. (Stimpacks worked, but they gave him a hangover that the gun didn’t. Stimpacks didn’t work on Strong because of the needle problem again.) Since radiation didn’t do much to mutants, Hancock didn’t even have to get up. 

“Hey, careful there big guy,” Hancock warned, eyes narrowing. The itching of the healing bullet hole was intense enough that it was making him cranky. “I’m in charge here, not you.”

“Then do it right,” Strong said, clearly unintimidated. “You have caps, chems. But not fair dis-tri-bu-tion of them. People sleeping in streets.”

Hancock squinted at Strong. “The fuck do you care?”

“Humans and ghouls weak com-pared to supermutants,” Strong said, expression amiable through this. “They need more care. Would survive better if you acted like supermutants: all together.”

“What, like communism? Dunno if you’ve noticed, but when I have more clothes on,” Hancock had only bothered with trousers today, wanting to keep the wound bare, “I’m dressed up like a symbol of democracy, not communism.”

“Don’t care what you call it,” Strong insisted. “Unfair as things are. You have much, others have little. Make _you_ the bad guy.”

High as Hancock was on med-X, this was distressing to hear.

“I fought my way here,” Hancock explained, but the words sounded plaintive to his ears. “In a town like this, you have to be tough to survive. I got here by killing the people who were hurting others, not making nice with them. Sharing like we’re all buddies was never an option.”

“Some people need to die. That is not problem. But now, people who deserved it are dead,” Strong pointed out. “Be better than them.”

“People would take advantage,” Hancock protested, but when he listened to himself, he sounded just like his brother. Different rhetoric, but the same shitty attitude about being in power. “Use it as an excuse not to help out Goodneighbor and just mooch off my generosity.”

The unimpressed look Strong gave him indicated he was no more swayed by this argument than Hancock himself. 

“So you punch the bad ones. Kill them maybe. This not a big place. You know everyone. And people like you. If someone being greedy, people would tell you if you didn’t already know.”

A long pause followed this as Hancock thought it over. 

“Well fuck me if you’re not right,” Hancock said at last, distressed by the revelation. But it earned him a narrow look. 

“Fuck you either way. _Like_ you better if you listen.”

Well there it was. 

By that evening Hancock had gotten something set up for distribution of stimpacks and food, and had asked Daisy to look into getting supplies to repair local houses and build more shelters. Some people immediately started wondering if Hancock had gone soft or finally rotted his brain with chems. Hancock responded that if they didn’t like it, they could leave Goodneighbor, or he could shoot them. That quickly quieted the backtalk. 

By that evening, Strong was healed enough to be feeling amorous, apparently, because he greeted Hancock’s return from dinner by wrapping his huge green hands around Hancock’s much-smaller face and kissing him. 

The texture of a mutant’s mouth was, to Hancock’s surprise, very similar to that of a ghoul. Ghoul skin was mostly scar tissue of varying textures and often tough in places. Supermutant skin was tough all over, but that toughness faded off inside the lips into normal, soft, flexible flesh. And Strong, it turned out, was a very competent kisser. Neither overly aggressive nor too passive, and apparently quite passionate about the art form. 

Hancock tried not to remember where that mouth had been. Or, more importantly, what had been in that mouth. Could you catch diseases from kissing someone who ate people? Probably as a ghoul Hancock was immune, but still. 

There was very little clothing for Strong to remove, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when it came off and revealed a smooth, hairless mound. 

“So how does this work?” Hancock inquired. When Strong had spread himself out on the mattress (with some spillage over the edges) his open legs revealed a small divot on his taint that was clearly where he peed from, but there wasn’t much else in the way of recognizable genitals. 

Strong showed him what to do. He brought Hancock down to sit between those massive thighs and had him cup his palm over the top of the pubic bone, the heel of Hancock’s palm right over where a clitoris might have been on someone else.

Clearly there was still some equivalent set of nerve endings in there, because when Strong moved Hancock’s hand in a circular fashion, sliding the skin and fat over the bone, Strong let out a rumble of satisfaction. 

“Harder,” he directed. “Lean into it.”

It took most of Hancock’s weight to do it hard enough for Strong’s tastes, and by the time Strong came Hancock was wishing he’d popped a Buffout before starting. His arms ached and felt rubbery at the same time. It was worth it, though, to see Strong’s tremendous frame shake like a junkie’s hands. 

“Mm. That good warm-up,” Strong remarked, blinking his startling brown eyes at Hancock. Hancock blinked back at him, somewhere between horrified and intrigued to find out what Strong wanted next. “Now put your hand in me.”

“What, the whole thing?” Hancock asked, and then felt stupid for having said it. Given their relative sizes, his entire hand and most of his forearm was only about the size of a large dick to Strong. 

Before Strong could even respond, Hancock shook his head at himself and leaned over to get the good lube from his bedside table. “Well all right then.” 

Strong’s ass turned out to be quite an amenable muscle, admitting Hancock with only a little pushing and far less patience than Hancock had expected. Hancock had fingered a lot of people, of course; he figured any competent lover had if they slept with any bottoms at all. He’d even slept with a select few humans since he’d become a ghoul, though human partners who’d have him were admittedly much rarer these days. So Hancock was familiar with how shockingly warm human insides were compared to his own low temperature. 

But the heat inside Strong was _so_ intense that Hancock’s back and chest prickled in the way that indicated his ruined skin was trying to sweat. It was like dunking his hand into a hot bath that could flex. Hancock could tell already he was going to have a ring of bruises around his wrist, and never before had that sounded so appealing. 

“Well goddamn, ain’t that just gorgeous,” he said, which seemed like a really inadequate way to express his feelings, but he had no idea what else to say. Possibly he was too stoned for this. Or not stoned enough?

The smug grin this earned him demonstrated that Strong was unhurt by the passage of Hancock's bony little knuckles, or was pleased by the way it hurt, or something. Hancock shifted in his seat, feeling his dick try to swell up. 

“Push your thumb-bone up,” Strong directed. 

After a second to imagine the anatomical logistics of this (assuming mutants even had the equivalent of a g-spot or a prostate in there) Hancock rotated his hand so the first knuckle of this thumb was aimed straight up and then gave his arm a gentle rock. 

Thankfully here a softer touch seemed to do the trick, because Hancock really didn’t have it in him to do another workout like the first one. Strong let out a massive rumble of satisfaction. 

By the time he finished again, Hancock was so horny he couldn’t see straight. He managed (barely) to wash his hands and get his pants off. As soon as he got back onto the mattress beside Strong he had a hand between his legs.

Which was when he discovered that between the med-X and the effort of fucking Strong, he didn’t have the acuity with his hands to get himself off. 

Before he could get upset, though, the mattress heaved as Strong lifted himself onto one elbow. Then he licked two huge fingers and held his hand between Hancock’s thighs, hovering right over Hancock’s privates. 

“Let me?”

“Yeah alright,” Hancock said, honestly a little concerned for how this would go. 

But he needn’t have worried. Strong’s touch was gentle, tucking his slippery fingers on either side of the scarred-up remains of what had once been Hancock’s dick. It created the perfect hot, wet channel for Hancock to rock himself into--and for one of the first times since the radiation drug ten years ago, Hancock didn’t think about how much he’d ruined as he came. 

**

When Hancock woke the next day, curled up into the warm crater in the mattress at Strong’s side, Hancock's wound was fully healed and he felt wonderful even _before_ he took his first hit of Jet for the day. He felt even better when Strong gave him another handjob. 

A few happy weeks passed that way. News came that the Minutemen had taken a massive trading post to the West, and Hancock wondered if it was Nate who’d done it--only to have it proven that yes, yes it had been, when Nate turned up the next week. He looked none the worse for wear, though his combat armor had taken a beating. At his side was a man with a metal eyepatch. He looked around the Statehouse with a weather eye, but there was something about the way he held himself at Nate’s side that spoke of fear.

Nate waved at Hancock and greeted Strong with a kiss, Nate's shark stare softening at the sight of the mutant. 

“I hope Goodneighbor’s been treating you well, sugarplum?” Nate asked. The man at his side shifted uncomfortably, looking away with a cough. 

“Been good,” Strong answered. “Who this?”

“Ah, forgive my terrible manners,” Nate laughed, though Hancock couldn’t see anything funny. “This is Porter. Or would you prefer they call you Gage?”

“Gage is fine,” the man said. 

“Well then, Hancock, I’ve got another stray for you,” Nate smiled. He laid a possessive hand on Gage’s shoulder. “Gage here used to be a raider, but he got tired of the lifestyle.”

“C’mon, Boss,” Gage muttered, looking away. “I’m leavin’ it behind, you don’t gotta go tellin’ everybody about it.”

What did Nate even have to do to have teeth like that? Hancock wondered. He couldn’t imagine. He’d only seen things like Nate in pre-War advertisements. 

“We’ve had ex-raiders here before,” Hancock said, finding himself more in sympathy with Gage than he might have otherwise been, just because Gage was having to stand at Nate’s side. “Some of ‘em have settled in, made good for themselves. Some of ‘em got shot between the eyes.”

There was a moment of silence. Thanks to the Mentats Hancock happened to be on just then, he saw the way Nate’s knuckles went white on Gage’s shoulder. 

“Reading you loud and clear,” Gage said, ostensibly to Hancock, but clearly actually to Nate. “The Boss says you need more guns to defend this place from, uh.” He glanced at Strong. “Mutants?”

Goodneighbor did indeed need more guns. So Hancock found Gage a place to stay in the newly-fixed housing, got him fed with the others at meals, and had the Neighborhood Watch keep their eyes on him. 

Nate turned up a month later with a robobrain who seemed determined to be as unpleasant as possible to everyone with whom she spoke. She made no friends whatsoever, but she did like killing things. 

A couple weeks after that, Nate brought by a girl named Cait with the kind of track marks that told a whole story all in one glance. She tried to fight or fuck anyone who looked at her funny, but as that had also described Hancock in his younger years, he figured she’d fit right in. She was damned good with a shotgun and had apparently just given up Psycho, because she refused it with a pained look when Hancock offered her some. 

A month after that, Nate showed up to Goodneighbor with both a shy bald guy and another robot, this time a modified Miss Nanny model with an accent. Weirder still, the ‘bot wanted to be made human--so Hancock sent her Amari, because what else could he do? Once the ‘bot, Curie, had gotten a synth body, Nate left her behind in Goodneighbor as Goodneighbor’s new scientist-in-residence. 

Hancock had no idea how Nate found these people or what he did to them to convince them to come here, but come they did. 

After Curie was a synth who’d used to be in the Brotherhood. That phrase alone, ‘synth who used to be in the Brotherhood,’ was so fucked up that Hancock hadn’t asked more questions beyond a name. Danse seemed every bit as miserable as his tagline would suggest, and he looked with distaste at the ghouls around him. But he was impressively skilled with a laser rifle, and Nate had kitted him out with a full set of highly-modded power armor. Within a few days of his arrival, Danse had organized some of the drifters and given them training in gun usage and basic military tactics. First he got them to clean up the streets, and then he turned them into an impromptu strike team. He led them out into the ruins to hunt mutants and raiders, and, well...Hancock had done something similar once, so. He left Danse to it. Most of the people Danse took with him came back alive, and Hancock had to respect that. 

A full two months passed before Nate next returned. This time he looked not just like the cat who’d gotten the cream, but had also eaten the canary, the neighbor’s dog, and maybe robbed a bank. At his side was a guy with a leather coat and a thousand-yard stare. He said nothing, and Nate introduced him only as X. X apparently also needed a place to stay. 

“I blew up the Institute,” Nate said over dinner that night with Hancock and Strong and Fahrenheit, and Hancock almost inhaled his tato fries. 

“You _what,”_ he wheezed.

“You must’ve heard the blast,” Nate said, seeming almost offended. “It wasn’t that far from here.”

“‘Course I heard the blast!” Hancock hacked some more. Strong laid one big hand on Hancock’s back to steady him. “Everybody and their mother heard the blast! It’s had people terrified for weeks! That was you? That was the _Institute?”_

“Emphasis on ‘was,’” Nate said with evident delight. “Shot the leader right in the head and then blew up the place. Which reminds me--that’s why I’m here today. There’s a lot of synth refugees. Most of them are in Diamond City now, because they look human of course, but they’d be better off here.”

Hancock just stared at him, feeling like he’d somehow lost track of how the world worked. For once he didn’t think it was the drugs. 

“Yeah, all right,” Hancock sighed. “But look--when you go this time, I’m coming with you. I gotta see you in action myself. Hearing about it secondhand is like hearing about orgasms secondhand. Just not as fun.”

Nate turned the full glaring wattage of his teeth and eyes on Hancock. 

“I’d love to get to know you better," Nate purred. "I’m going up north with a friend--maybe you know him, Nick Valentine? And Strong, baby, I want you to come with us too, I’ve missed you.”

It had been too long since Hancock had gone walkabouts. Even with Strong’s push, it was clear that the comforts of leadership were getting a little too comfortable. But even for a man like Hancock, the Commonwealth was dangerous to travel alone. So who better to go with than one of the most terrifying men Hancock had ever met and not immediately killed? Plus, if Strong was going too, that meant Hancock could still get laid. 

“Bring lube,” Strong said, so clearly he agreed. 

Nate smiled. He always did. 


End file.
